Please Read and Review… mainly because I'd like to hear what you think of the story…
IMPORTANT! NOTE ON CHARACTERS IN SETO'S VIDEO GAME: Seto describes the characters in the game he's designing, way back in Chapter 11. But since that was quite a while ago, I'm giving an abridged version here: "You could chose from a real range of alter egos: a mischievous imp, like the Monkey King of Chinese legend, recreated as a boy; a fairy tale prince; and my favorite, a tall blue-eyed Elven warrior, graceful and deadly. You could even choose to be a villain: an evil sorcerer, or his demonic King."
NOTE ON ELVISH: Quenya is one of the Elvish languages created by Professor J.R.R. Tolkien. Thanks to Kagemihari for the translation.
NICKNAME REMINDER: Koryuu means little dragon. It is used as a nickname for the 13 year-old Seto Kaiba.
CHAPTER 25: HERE THERE BE DRAGONS
KAIBA'S POV
The punk thought he needed my help. He was about to get a lot more than he bargained for. What he needed was a lesson in the finer points of gaming – and I was about to make my next move painfully instructive.
We had been working on Seto's game for weeks. Even if I hadn't been keeping tabs on him, the game itself would have told me more than I wanted to know… more than I could stomach. Now it was time for me to add a few little details of my own. Then it would be time to play. If the original designer, with unconscious flattery, had given the Elven warrior my brown hair and blue eyes, he had also given the Monkey King, Mokuba's mop of black hair and improbable lavender eyes. It hadn't taken much to punch up the resemblance. The gaunt sorcerer now matched Shadi's description of Akunadin. Seto would be able to tell if the likeness was true far better than I. In a frill of my own, I had not been able to resist adding a few details to the prince, changing his eye and hair color to match Yami's. (After all, no one, even in a video game, has crimson eyes.)
I had lost Yami. I knew that. I didn't need to wait for him to tell me that he had had enough, and there was nothing else for either of us to say, anyway. When I thought of how close Seto was to betraying Mokuba, and why… I knew this was one thing I could not accept about myself… could not expect Yami to embrace. Still, I couldn't resist preserving some semblance of Yami in a game I would never be able to bear playing.
I should have known better, but I had been well and truly seduced. At first, coming face to face with Seto had me hoping that Mokuba had been right all these years. It had reminded me that although it had all gone horribly wrong, I had begun this journey wanting only to protect Mokuba. I had never given up. I had been defeated. I kept repeating that to myself… kept reminding myself that there was a difference. Until I thought I had convinced myself. Until, although I still felt the shame of that loss, the guilt had started to lift, a little.
I had been seduced into believing that my younger self wasn't as vile as I remembered, that betrayal didn't lie at the heart of my nature, that I had something worth offering to Yami. Another delusion.
It was appropriate that it was a game that had shattered my illusions.
Seto's game.
The thing that had caught my interest… the thing that had brought Seto to me for help… was that this game was different. The characters could now make choices that would alter their future course. They could even try to atone for their actions, although redemption became harder with each wrong turn. I smiled. Like it or not – it was time for the punk to play his own game.
SETO'S POVI might not like him – but right now I needed him – and I've always understood necessity. I knew I was taking a calculated risk. Kaiba was smart enough to read between its lines, so my game had probably revealed my secret. But he was also the only one who could fix it – and in the end the game mattered more than the secret.
Besides, it was fitting. We reveal ourselves through our games. I thought of Kaiba's deck; of his soaring dragons, his insidious virus cards… how they were a mixture of light and dark… yet all were creatures of strength and determination. His deck was about power, pain and sacrifice. It was a deck a man could be proud of.
And what did my deck reveal about me? After all, the strongest card in it was Mokuba's hand drawn dragon – a card everyone but me believed worthless, a card I could never use in a duel. A card whose importance I could not reveal without risking its loss.
I looked at what had been my video game. The characters had changed. Oh, not the Demon King. Each time we had met, we had added funnier details: a business suit, bushy eyebrows… finally a cigar. Kaiba had laughed, and said we'd have to change him back before we released the game to the public. It wouldn't do for Gozaburo's loving adoptive sons to picture their generous benefactor as the root of all evil. "Besides," he added with a grin, "I guess we do owe this all to him."
But the other characters were different. And I knew. This was Kaiba's game now. And I would have to play it.
He had given some of the characters names. I looked at script under the Elven warrior. "Ninquiloce," I read aloud. "I like it. It suits him. What does it mean?"
"White Dragon," he said with a cold smile.
Shit. This was not going to be fun.
"What language is it?" I asked, stalling for time.
"Elvish. Quenya, to be exact."
"Been talking to any Elves lately?" I sneered.
"Only in a manner of speaking. You can find out almost anything you want to know on the Internet."
He pointed to the screen, suddenly business like.
"What we have to do now," he said casually, as though he wasn't springing a trap, "Is pick a character and go through all their possible courses of action. Let's take Ninquiloce. He's your favorite, isn't he?"
I nodded, as if I didn't feel the trap closing.
"Well then – what's he after? He has to have a goal, doesn't he?"
"Uhh, saving the world?"
"That's such a boring motive. And over-used. Only the prince could get away with that one. Not our Elven warrior. But what if he just wanted to save a piece of it?" The arrow clicked on the Monkey King who was now Mokuba's double. "What if he looked on him like… a brother? Wouldn't it add… spice to the game if the characters were drawn to each other – for good or for evil? What if they could decide who to commit to?"
I nodded. It was what I had wanted, why I had sought him out. But I was suddenly wary of where he was going.
"So, the Monkey King is his angel," he said. "Now, which one will lead him into darkness?"
I pointed at the sorcerer who now looked like Akunadin. "There's no way he'd be stupid enough to fall for the Demon King. So it has to be this one."
"What would you say is the lure? If our fine Elven Warrior is going down – there has to be a reason. So our sorcerer needs to have some attractive qualities," he smirked, "Except for our Demon King, here – most people have at least one. What would seduce a proud elf warrior?"
"Besides the promise of power? Well, maybe have the sorcerer care about Ninquiloce… at least a little bit." I found myself blurting out. It really was like talking to myself. (Which was what he had banked on, of course.) "Like the sorcerer's using him. He can't help it – it's what he does. But maybe, he kind of likes Ninquiloce, too."
"Ahh, a worthy trap. So, we'll make our sorcerer a little… parental, shall we? An interesting decision. But then, we'll have to make Ninquiloce a little younger, won't we?" A couple of clicks, and it was a young teenager, not an adult who faced us. His name had changed also, from Ninquiloce to Locelle. I didn't need to ask, to know that it meant Little Dragon… to know that his name was now Koryuu.
"So, our Little Dragon has an interesting choice – to be a parent or a child." Kaiba said. "In the end, Locelle won't be able to have both the Monkey King and the Sorcerer."
"What makes you so sure? The game's not finished yet. Just because you couldn't have both, doesn't mean I can't. Maybe I'm better than you," I snarled.
"Why do I always have to learn everything the hard way?" he asked the ceiling, before turning to me and snarling back, "No, the game's not over – and you're playing it through to the end."
At first I thought I could beat the game. I thought Kaiba was wrong, and I could have both. Until I saw where my decisions had led us. Locelle and the Monkey King were surrounded in an alley. There was only time for one of us to escape – if the other bought that time with his life.
I turned to Kaiba. I was pissed at him for pulling such a lame-assed stunt. "Are you really stupid enough to think that I need to be reminded that Mokuba is my responsibility?" I laughed in his face. "I'm not likely to forget that any time soon, am I?"
My hands moved easily on the controls, moving Locelle into the line of fire, when Kaiba's voice stopped me in my tracks.
"No," he said. "You have to try every combination, not just the familiar one."
I looked at Locelle and the Monkey King, standing side by side, their arms around each other's shoulders.
"Not that one," I whimpered.
"Did you really think that Locelle could emerge unscathed from this game he's playing? Did you think he could do whatever he wanted, regardless of consequences? Do you think that actions exist in a vacuum? Now who's being stupid? Locelle won't be the one to pay the price for your blindness… for your failure… at least not yet. Review your actions in your mind. When you stop lying to yourself, you'll admit that there's only one move left for Locelle to make. Do it!" he ordered.
Even as I followed Kaiba's barked command… even as Locelle grabbed the Monkey King and swung him in front to use as a shield a living shield… I kept expecting something to happen… something to save Mokuba… because even in a game, I couldn't kill him… I couldn't watch him die.
But nothing came between Mokuba and the lightning strikes aimed at us… aimed at him.
Mokuba's likeness shattered and turned to dust before our eyes.
I could say that it was just a video image on a screen… but I didn't believe that, any more than Kaiba did. If there was one thing we both knew it was this: games are real. I looked at Kaiba's face. It was as white as mine.
"Why the hell did you tell me to do that?" I yelled.
"Because the worst mistakes are the ones made in ignorance," he replied.
"How could you let Mokuba die?"
"I didn't," Kaiba said quietly, almost gently, "You did. You were the one at the controls, the one whose choices brought you to this point. This is your game, Seto – and has been right from the start. I'm just showing you how it ends," he added as he left.
If it was my game, why did I feel like I had just lost?
Thanks to Clarity for betaing this chapter.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: It's funny… al the way back in Chapter 8, I needed an excuse to get Yami and Kaiba to Kaiba Land, so Kaiba could look out the window, have a flashback, and talk to Yami. On a whim, I put Seto in charge of a work group designing a video game that took place in Ancient Egypt (funny how he took it over, huh?). Anyway, I realized that I'd just filled a plot hole by giving Seto an excuse to keep meeting Akunadin, who was his source of information on all things Egyptian. I needed to extend the contact long enough that Seto would be tempted by Akunadin's offered affection.
But somewhere along the line, I realized how well the characters could fit into a video game. I keep trying to figure out what Seto and Kaiba's common language is – since it certainly isn't any spoken one – and one answer is – it might be gaming. I admit I'm curious to know if people were surprised after I kept mentioning Seto and Kaiba working on a game, that it turned out to be relevant.
Another thing that's funny – I keep saying that I picture Yami as sort of a Tolkien Elf – yet in the game, that character is played by Seto Kaiba. I honestly think Kaiba is too volatile and troubled to be anything but human… but with his height and thinness – which gives him an odd physical combination of fragility and strength, and given the fact that when he's focusing intently on a duel, or about to laugh maniacally, his expression can only be called other-worldly, he kind of looks like an Elf from a video game. By the way, for "Demon Diary" fans, I used Eclipse as a model for his hair and clothing.
Title Note: I know it's not quite a book or song title, but a while back, Katie Torango reminded me that maps, when showing the spaces beyond the mapmaker's knowledge often said in warning: Here there be dragons… and it seemed too good to resist. Thanks for the suggestion.
RESPONSES TO REVIEWS:
Seto: (AmunRa, AnimeFan-Artemis, Desidera, elirian19, Lightning Sage, samurai-ashes, StainofCurare, Troubled Talent) Yeah… he's pretty raunchy. And I'd agree, I think he's like a sponge, too. Only his experiences would lead him to look at people as objects or pawns, because that's what he's absorbed from his observations of how the world works. I also wanted to give him a kind of teenage bravado… like he's covering up ignorance and uncertainty with boastfulness. And I am trying to give Seto a voice that sounds distinctive from Kaiba's (more raw, with his emotions – well, mostly rage – closer to the surface) and yet make it believable that Seto's voice and thoughts could evolve into Kaiba's.
Writing Seto: The interesting thing about writing first person POVs is that you get to hide behind your characters. On some level I feel like: don't look at me… I didn't say all those crude things – Seto did! I just wrote them down. Okay, I'm not getting bonus points in the sanity department with that response, but at least it's honest. The only thing that I really look at and kind of ask myself: "Did I just write that?" is Gozaburo flashbacks. I really don't want to admit that most of what he says and does came out of my head. I feel the same way about any scene where
Seto and Akunadin: The story started with Akunadin and the Sennen Items, and I then spent most of the intervening time ignoring them! It was actually deliberately done. I needed that time in order to set things up so it made some kind of sense when they start working their way back into the story. It's probably the one decision I wonder about the most… so at the end of the story (which is still a while off) I'd like to know if people think it worked out. But for now at least, I was trying to show that Seto's awareness of and resentment towards Yami and Kaiba's relationship had left him a little more open to Akunadin. It was the reason I opened Seto's POV with him thinking about Yami and Kaiba. And I picked liking stories as one of the links that connect Seto and Kaiba. Thanks for letting me know that came across.
History: (BH, elirian19, Kanoi1, Lightning Sage, MotherCHOWGoddes, Wintersslayer) Thanks, I was afraid of boring people by throwing in all this historical stuff like the Sekiho Army. I know only little about that period, besides being a Rurouni Kenshin fan, but if I'm going to mention something, I do try to research it first, to try and avoid any really glaring errors. I can see Seto Kaiba identifying with the courage of the Sekiho Army, while being both admiring and disdainful of their idealism. I find him a bit of a contradiction in that way: Kaiba openly disparages ideals such as friendship, faith or hope, yet his own goals were to turn Kaiba Corporation from a weapons manufacturer to an entertainment empire, and to build Kaiba Land as a place that gave children the kind of happy childhood he never experienced.
Martial Arts: (BH, Desidera, Lightning Sage) That was an interesting observation… in many ways I see the Martial Arts Seto or Kaiba might study as revealing as their decks.
I did want to note, though, that when I called Martial Arts a sport, I did not mean to imply that they were trivial or frivolous. I think the chapter showed how important they were emotionally to the characters. I used the word sport to describe martial arts because I was trying to differentiate Judo (an other modern Martial Arts) as a sport from their Jujitsu (or Jujutsu) origins as a form of unarmed combat. The years in which Jigoro Kano, the founder of Judo, grew up and developed Judo (1860-1882), were years of enormous change in Japan. Sped on by the opening of Japan to Western influences, the Tokugawa Shogante and the feudal society it presided over crumbled, and after a civil war, the Imperial Government which replaced it was established, with the goal of turning Japan into a modern, western-style nation state. Jigoro Kano's aim was to combine the best of the principles of the varying styles of Jujitsu, with an emphasis on cooperation, respect and concern for one's opponent, and mental and physical development to create a new martial art that would carry Japan into the 20th Century. This emphasis on consideration for the safety of one's opponent, and using martial arts as a way of promoting peace distinguished Judo from earlier martial arts, which were a form of warfare. It struck me that this history might resonate with Kaiba and echo his own personal journey.
Mokuba: (Desidera, StainofCurare, Troubled Talent) The story focuses mainly on Kaiba (and Seto), but looking more deeply into Mokuba's emotional growth and change, is something I probably need to look at more. Thanks.
Thanks to Ceribi Motou – I always look for your quote to see what you picked. It really brightens up my day.
Thanks to Hikari Ryu, laura m, Mistal: The Poisoned One, Nachzes Black-Rider, Seto's Darkness for your encouragement. One of the challenges of the story has been combining a plot that (hopefully) moves forward while trying to show the characters thoughts and development – and do it using several different voices. It seemed a lot easier before I started! It's nice to hear that you're enjoying the story.
Note to Desidera: That was a good point – in an odd way Gozaburo also prepared Seto to be the King of Games' lover.
Note to Yekith: It's definitely a good idea, but I can't say whether it will happen without giving a spoiler to my own story.